Medical devices are used in a number of applications for a variety of diagnostic and monitoring purposes. For instance, electrodes are commonly used to monitor physiological electric potentials to detect muscular activity of a person's heart. The cardiovascular activity of the heart is typically monitored by adhering or connecting electrodes to the skin of the patient at particular locations on the body. The electrodes are then electrically coupled to electrical equipment such as an electrocardiograph (also referred to as ECG or EKG) apparatus that monitors the muscular activity of the heart. The resulting traces or output of the ECG provide a diagnostic tool for detecting heart disease and/or heart dysfunction of various etiology.
Silver-silver chloride inks are conventionally used in electrochemical and biomedical electrodes. Conductive Ag/AgCl ink is printed on polymeric film substrates to provide relatively low cost, disposable electrodes for ECG and other medical electrode applications.